Miscellaneous Hacks - NoSpam! - an alternative to CAPTCHA images

This hack is for vBulletin 3.6.x. For 3.5.x, please use the one provided in this thread. If you are using 3.7.x, you must use the one in this thread.

This simple hack is meant as a replacement for the default CAPTCHA system in vBulletin. There are two main reasons one might want to do this: firstly, new technology is constantly being developed to crack CAPTCHA images and make spam accounts anyway, and secondly, the more secure the CAPTCHA, the more difficult it is for genuine users to tell what the numbers in the image are. There is also the issue of visually impaired users, and the fact that not all servers are capable of generating CAPTCHA images.

So what does this hack do instead? It asks a question. Any question you want. That's the best part: YOU make up the questions, which means that every forum is unique, which means that it is impossible for spambots to be simply programmed to bypass it at all forums with the hack installed. You can make one or many questions - if you make many, the hack will pick one at random when a guest attempts to register, search, post or send mail through the Contact Us form. Their input is compared with your specified answer, and voil?, if they get it right they're pretty much guaranteed to be human. If they get it wrong, they're given an error message.

It doesn't have to be a complicated question. Heck, you can just make it "Please type 'blah' into this box." Or you can go with inserting a simple image with HTML and ask what is shown on the image. Or you can ask them to tell you two plus two. It's up to you. In fact, this can also be used as a means of forcing people to read the rules by asking for a certain password found there, or if your forum focuses on a specialized subject, ask a question concerning the subject that all your genuine users will be able to answer, but a random troll or "CAPTCHA-sweatshop-reader" will be scratching their head over.

It's simple to install, too: just one product to import, and that's it.


VERSION HISTORY:

3.0: Added functionality to allow users to specify which pages should use NoSpam!.
2.0: Extended the NoSpam! functionality to guest posts, guest searches and guest "Contact Us" in addition to registration.
1.1: Made template edit automatic (with thanks to Cole2026), added ability to have more than one answer to each question, and made answers case insensitive. To upgrade, I recommend undoing the template edit so you won't have to worry about it anymore (replace $nospamfield in the template register with $imagereg, or if you added $nospamfield above $imagereg, just remove $nospamfield altogether), and then reimport the product through the Admin CP (making sure that Allow Overwrite is set to On).
1.0: Initial release.


INSTALLATION:

Please download NoSpam!.zip, not product-nospam.xml, for the tested version. product.nospam.xml is NoSpam! 4.0 adapted blindly to 3.6, i.e. by editing the XML file for the 3.7 version without actually testing it on a 3.6 board. Theoretically it should work, but I cannot guarantee it at this time. If you download NoSpam!.zip and unzip it, it will contain another file called product.nospam.xml, which you should use.

1. Import product-nospam.xml through the Admin CP product manager.
2. Go to your vBulletin options in the Admin CP and select NoSpam! Settings. Once there, turn the system on and input your questions and answers according to the instructions there.

The system should now be functional and running.


UNINSTALLATION:

Just uninstall the product through the Admin CP.


SUPPORT:

Full support will be given here in this thread. All suggestions are welcome.

Thank you and please click "Mark as Installed" if you like it.


If NoSpam! is not working for you or you are looking for something a little different, you might want to check out Advanced Textual Confirmation.

[antiekeradio]

Hmm, the beauty of this mod for my board would be that I could ask the questions in Dutch.

this would mean i could use really simple questions, enabling even 'slightly less intelligent' :-) humans to register, while still keeping out the bots and even the human spammers (who don't speak dutch)

still; 2 questions:

- Are there "Phrases" in this plugin so that the title of the question box and the error text can be translated?

- Is it possible to define a {question:answer} set per language?

I am going to install it anyway but consider either a feature request for the future (if not 'yes' already)

PS when reading all the stuff about the problems with CAPTCHA image and all the specific settings etc, I already thought of a custom question system like the one made possible by this. Quite silly vBulletin doesn't want to make this 'out of the box', actually.
totally agree with the MoM award!

[Smoothie]

Originally Posted by ThePiston

pretty nice add-on... ever think of including a stock or sample bundle of Q/As in the txt file?

That would defeat the whole purpose of this mod.

[antiekeradio]

after install it seems that both questions are 'no' atm.

where do i change the title of the question box and the error text???

[antiekeradio]

ah, i'm very sorry. the search function of the phrases seems to be case-sensitive, even when it is set not be so. Found the phrases!

[rungss]

Originally Posted by antiekeradio

ah, i'm very sorry. the search function of the phrases seems to be case-sensitive, even when it is set not be so. Found the phrases!

I came across this plugin just now.

I have one query, is the validation/search function case sensitive or is it customizable.

If it is case sensitive then user might have a tough time figuring out the answer in the right case combination.

Also if the answer is multiple word or a combination of special characters and alphabets, it again can create a problem for the user.

What is required is a system which verifies that the end user is indeed a human with least trouble for the user. and that the user is not prompted again and again unnecessarily to retype the answer or verify them.

Thanks,
Bijay Rungta
Software Architect
http://www.PaGaLGuY.com

[Smoothie]

The answers, they are not case-sensitive.

[antialiasis]

antiekeradio, a user posted fairly recently somewhere in this thread with a modification of this hack that allows for questions to be in different languages. However, it is not exactly going to help keeping out spammers any better if the questions are already also in English, is it? And if you want them only in Dutch, you can just put them in in Dutch right from the start.

Originally Posted by ThePiston

can you tell me in very simple terms where I find "form template "? thanks

I'm not sure what you're referring to... the first thing I thought of when I saw that was that you had been installing the Forms Hack and are having trouble with that, but then you should ask for support in that hack's own support thread.

rungss, the answers are case insensitive. Whether the answer is multi-worded or such of course depends entirely upon the administrator of the forum; it is therefore up to them to have the sense to select questions whose answers are straightforward enough to make the user have little choice in how to type their answer as long as they do know what it is. If there is any choice at all, the multiple answers can take care of it, such as by allowing the user to answer either "4" or "four" if the answer is the number four. I am fairly certain that all that is possible to do on my end to ensure the convenience of the user has been done.

[Top Nurse]

I just installed this into our live forum and it works perfectly in 3.6.5! (see here for the hack mod)

Originally Posted by derfelix

Ok i looked a little into the multilingual support.. as I was not satisfied with the solution above. I am using the hack https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=98904 by JoergZ for translating customfields and i thought that i could use a few lines of code here. (actually it is a code snippet I posted in that thread to adapt his hack)

The basic idea is: You only need the question translated, you can define the answers in different languages.. so you give the answers in all installed languages.

3 steps to make it work multilanguage with phrases.

[Top Nurse]

See this post.

Originally Posted by antiekeradio

- Are there "Phrases" in this plugin so that the title of the question box and the error text can be translated?

[antialiasis]

That's the questions themselves, not the title of the question box and the error text, however.

I think I named those phrases "nospam_question" and "nospam_wrong_answer", but my memory may be failing me.